Before Harran
by Tafferling
Summary: Latchkey Hero extras. Read for Season 3! Kyle Crane loves his job, and he's damn good at it. Obviously, since he's still around to take contracts, and when the GRE approaches him for one very particular deployment, he finds it very hard to say no. But how do you prepare for Zombies? It's not like there's a ton of handy training material available, so Kyle decides to improvise.
1. Titus

**Taffer Notes:** I don't think I'll take this anywhere, and if I do it'll be slow to update. But as it turns out I seem to have grown overly fond of my interpretation of Kyle Crane, and because of that he needs himself a background. Something more, something that doesn't stop at the mercenary hired by the GRE to go after Suleiman, but someone who likes his cold beer and a good couch coop session here and there.

This can probably be considered complimentary reading to Latchkey Hero. It is somewhat important if you're following the series into season 3.

And as usual: Thank you for reading :) Apologies for the quality though, I'm not going to be spending a lot of time on editing these pieces.

* * *

 **TITUS**

"Seriously, man?"

 **K** yle looked up, briefly pausing his assault on Titus' scruffy head, his fingers catching on large ears. Pink tongued, sticky dog appreciation followed quickly, slobbery and rough and very insistent. _Keep going_ , the licks against his forearm said, and only stopped once he resumed kneading his fingers into the coarse, warm hair.

Good Boy—Good Titus— _I'm gonna miss you, you stupid flea ball,_ Kyle thought, and a few steady thumps on the floor told him Titus agreed with the notion of being a good boy, and that he'd probably miss him too.

"You're the fucking worst," Sebastian complained next to him on the couch, and when Kyle looked at him the man three years his senior jabbed a bulgy XBOX controller at him. Jabbed it hard, snapping the corners against his shoulders like he was trying to make a point. And a point he probably had, because his friend's face was fucking pale, and his eyes all wide as they kept cutting between him and the TV. A sight that didn't really fit well on the square, fully bearded face with the crown of blonde hair. Sebastian the Viking, rattled like a baby.

"What?" A stupid question, Kyle knew, and he glanced at the game starting up, at the reason for Seb getting all worked up, and felt his lips curl up in a grin. He'd figured Seb wouldn't approve of his choice of parting entertainment, but the one leaving got to pick. That's how it had always worked and how it'd keep working, because traditions like those you didn't break unless you wanted to mess with your luck. He threw a toothy wide grin at the screen and watched the _Left 4 Dead 2_ intro rolling in. One of his absolute favourites, and he deserved to treat himself to it before the wheels went up tomorrow.

"Don't you think this is— I mean— come on, Kyle. Bad taste much?"

"Hey, I'm the one going down there, not you. Don't be a sissy." He stopped scratching at Titus' head. An equal parts disappointed and satisfied sigh escaped between floppy dog lips and pearly white teeth, the _HRRUMPH_ of it lifting the German Shepherd's shoulders. A muffled whine followed quickly after, and Kyle patted the free spot to his right. "Come on up, boy." Titus readily complied, bumped his way up on the couch, and gave him a good swat with his tail while he curled himself into a blob of dark brown and black fur. Clingy as fuck, but that wasn't news. He practically attached himself to his heel when a deployment came around, something he'd picked up on even while he'd still been all paws and ears and the best chick magnet ever. Now all he attracted was ticks, but Kyle was okay with that.

Titus dropped his muzzle on his lap, blubbered up another sigh, and Kyle's hand went right back to administering additional attention. So maybe they both got a bit clingy before work. That was okay, too.

"I've got to prepare," he said eventually and leaned over the dog to swipe his own controller, along with his beer, from the table. The bottle he squeezed between his thighs, where it received a testing sniff and tentative lick, and the controller he balanced on his knee. "How else am I going to get familiarized with the opposition? It's not like they've got training material available for that shit. Dibs on Ellis, by the way."

"Prep— Shit, man. You're insane."

"Yeah, yeah. If I had a penny, etc… Just humor me, okay?"

He'd miss Seb too, Kyle figured. And the beer, because deployments to the Middle East were hard on a man, even without Zombies and all that shit.

 _Zombies_.

It still hadn't quite sunk in, and he doubted it ever really would. At this point he'd just accepted it at face value, much like the rest of the world had. Nothing else to do, really. Things moved on. They kept rolling around the bubble of concrete walls and a tight communication embargo, that blob on the map called Harran. Truth be told, Kyle shouldn't even have told Seb what he'd be up to the next few weeks, but he couldn't just not tell his best friend about how absolutely mind blowing the job he'd landed was going to be. Not like he knew much about it yet— just that there was the need for a pair of boots on the ground, and they needed to be a decent pair, and Kyle had just that. His record proved it well enough.

"This is way out there though," Seb whined and picked Nick to slaughter Z's with. He always went for Nick, something about sleazy class or some such bullshit, and Kyle wondered if he'd find any men in dirty white suits with their business shoes still on once he landed in the Quarantine. Probably not. He took a swallow from his beer and mused that over while his friend repeated himself on his concerns about his latest contract. But that's what friends did, he figured. They bothered you because they cared, and he was fine with that. Didn't mean he had to listen.

"You should have gone private security."

Kyle scoffed. "Boring."

"Yeah but at least you'll be alive to be bored."

"Ye of little faith." Kyle squeezed Titus' head again. "Now shut up and play." Thick, coarse fur bunched up between his fingers— and yeah— he'd miss that stupid dog something fierce, but coming home would be damn sweet, because dogs, now those were the best when it came to welcoming you back, and Kyle had every intention to do just that.

He'd come back a little bit richer, and maybe _then_ he'd consider private security, or buy a bike, one of those with a passenger pod so he could take Titus for a road trip.

That'd be ace.

Maybe Seb would come along and they'd do a repeat performance of their first trip down the East Coast, the one where Seb had met his wife and Kyle had signed up for the Army. Half a fucking eternity ago by now, with years upon years of life stacked on afterwards. It'd be almost poetic, he mused, going full circle like that.

"BMW or Harley?" Kyle asked while he knocked his way through a horde of Z's with a baseball bat.

"What?"

"BMW or Harley?" He repeated, and they spent the rest of the night planning a road trip Kyle couldn't wait to get to.

* * *

 **Taffer Notes:** Okay, so I'll confess: This was inspired by a dream, in which Kyle Crane binge watched the Walking Dead to prepare himself for his trip to Harran and had a German Shepard constantly stealing his beer. I couldn't pass up doing something with that peculiar image in my head, so after I woke up I sat down and wrote this before going to work.

And come on, he obviously loves dogs, right? Or what do you think, Reader? Am I absolutely wrong and you think he's a cat person? Don't be shy to let me know. I love discussing characters and seeing other people's take on them.


	2. Whump

**Taffer Notes:** In Latchkey, I briefly mentioned a night in Kyle's life which ended him in lockup and with his shoes kind of ruined after he bumped into the dude that messed around with his fiancée.

Always wanted to write it down with a bit more detail, and since I hadn't done my 1k words for today yet, I decided to give it a try.

A challenge I gave myself this time: Little to no descriptions next to my usual sparse dialogue.

* * *

 **WHUMP**

 **I** t wasn't like he'd picked the bar for a reason past their beer selection. No, not really. And he'd definitely hadn't walked in knowing damn well that it'd all go to shit, because tonight Kyle Crane had left his sense between the first cold beer cracked open on his porch, and Seb eyeballing him with a _You sure?_ sitting unsaid between them while he'd let his truck roll into the parking lot. Best designated driver ever. Hands down.

The _Hops Saloon_ was a cozy corner of a place, sitting between things bigger and flashier, and Kyle had used to love coming here.

Jessica had too.

Or maybe she'd just liked their burger sides, because she'd sure as hell not shared his enthusiasm in working methodically through the list of craft beers sorted on their shelves.

With or without her— but mostly _before_ —he'd often broken off after a little sampling and skipped to the next door over, towards the hard thump of music and a colourful dance floor that'd eaten up the rest of the night. Good fucking times, those. Dance until his calves burnt. Until his shirt was soaked through, fused to his spine, and the last call rang out.

There was an idea in there somewhere— in finishing his beer— nudging Seb— and rolling out of the muted, golden light of the Hops, and into the sharp glare of neon instead. But nah. Tonight, Kyle kept his ass planted on the leather cushioned bar stool and focused on cycling through the selection on tap.

Why?

Because it'd been a shit day at the tail end of an even shittier week, which'd come tacked on to a fucking disaster of a month.

So he tried to wash it down. Drown out the itch of _we had something_ that'd been difficult to ignore today. And Seb helped. Talked about deployments they both kind of missed, and those they could have lived without.

Like he could have lived without Jess, really.

Would have to.

Would.

Kyle groaned, leaned his head back, and tilted the bottle after it. Which had half a swallow of lukewarm beer left in it, and half of that made it down his chin. What a damn waste.

"Ah shit." He wiped at the mess with his sleeve and set the bottle back down with a clack of glass on wood.

"Had enough?" Seb's hand swam into view, navigated the bottle away, which probably saved it from toppling over, Kyle figured.

He burped. Which felt great, by the by. Real fucking great. "Nope."

"Yeah— yeah, I think you have. Come on man, let's bail." The Viking gestured for the bartender, jabbed a finger down at Kyle's bottle and mouthed something that probably spelled out _bill_ or some other such shit, and Kyle stared at the mouth of said bottle like a dejected idiot.

But whatever. His head felt heavy anyway, and his stomach pinched, and when he slid off the chair, the world kind of went and did a bit of a dance like he should have been doing next door.

And then he saw him, and it wasn't like he'd picked the place hoping he would, or that he'd expected tonight to go to shit because he wanted it to.

"Woah, buddy, wait—" Seb's hand glanced off his arm trying to get a grip on him, but Kyle was drunk, not inept. He shook the grab with a twist of his shoulder that made the floor buck and the ceiling wobble.

None of which mattered. A red, hot haze pulled in tight. Burnt in his gut. It roared and it spat, and when the shit muffin turned and caught sight of him, the anger that Kyle'd kept carefully packaged up and slid out of sight, popped right free.

His name was Mathew. Mathew _fucked-if-I-know,_ and Jess had met him at the Hops while Kyle'd been busy getting shot at.

And right now, the piss stain's eyes were getting kind of wide and he took a step back, even though all Kyle wanted to do was say _Hi._ Granted, the effort kind of translated wrong. Went all _fist, meet face_ , and that fucking stung. Sharp pain flared on his knuckles, sprang right up his hand and wrist, and the noise that came after gave his stomach a real good squeeze.

Things got loud.

Wood scraped on wood. Voices tripped over each other. Seb shouted "Kyle!" and someone screamed "Break it up!" and Kyle thought that was really fucking funny for some reason. He also decided going for Mathew's face'd just smart again and punched him in the gut instead. He got two swings in. Two and a half, really, before Seb (had to be Seb, right?) wrenched his arms back and pulled him away.

From there on out, Mathew turned to a blur between his buddies coming to the rescue, and the floor starting to look really damn fine. Especially the bit between Kyle's shoes. Least until his stomach gave an ugly heave and he got vomit on his shoes— and the damn fine floor.

* * *

" **Y** eah, sorry, you're staying the night, bud. I'll pick you up in the morning."

Which sounded fair, Kyle thought. He deserved it. Deserved the hard, cold cot under him, and the glaring white light from the ceiling. Seb rapped his knuckles against the iron bars to the cell they'd stuffed him into, and exchanged a fleeting smile with the dude in uniform that'd locked him in here.

They'd kind of wanted to let him go, he remembered that from after they'd processed him. Something about the circumstances to it all, and an _I'd have done the same_. But Seb had insisted that he needed to learn a lesson. Or maybe two.

"You feed the dog then," Kyle mumbled and landed the back of his hand on his eyes to block out the light. When that didn't stop the world from spinning round and round, he planted one leg on the floor. That helped. A little.

"Don't worry, I'll look after Titus. You just sleep it off."

Kyle nodded. Flicked out his middle finger, and sent Seb off with a skewed salute of said finger tapping the side of his head. Which almost got him to poke his own fucking eye out.

The lights stayed on a little too long after that, which he deserved too, because yeah, he'd gone looking for trouble.

But whenever didn't he? Life was trouble, and _he_ was trouble, and maybe it was better that way.


End file.
